Try out “Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses”, An Asymmetrical Battle for Air Supremacy!

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289

@Smin1080p_WT @Stona_WT This game mode is incredibly unbalanced at the moment. I will list some of the problems I have encountered.

1. No air defenses for attacking team/Americans: Right now the defending team can just hang around the enemy spawn and pick off any F-4E’s that have a full fuel and weapon load. The MiG-21’s are substantially advantageous at this time because they do not have to worry about winning an objective and have a half the map covered with friendly air defenses. It would be better if the attacking team had some bases that had air defenses to rely on, like M163’s. I’m not asking for much, but something is better than nothing.

2. Attacking team too reliant on focusing the main objective: If the attacking team wants to have a good chance of winning, everyone would need to start off with an air-to-air loadout and kill as many MiG-21’s as possible in the beginning of the match. This doesn’t happen realistically because everyone would rather focus on the main objective and bring bombs or rockets rather than thinning out any of the defending teams’ aircraft. The defending team only has to care about killing other planes while the attacking team has to worry about multiple dangers.

3. No fire-and-forget weaponry for attacking team: I was saddened to hear that there were no anti-radiation missiles for testing, because the main reason they were developed was to ease the work load off of those doing Wild Weasel missions. Even though the early AGM-45 Shrike variants weren’t that good and antiquated to use, it would still help if they were implemented to some degree. Right now you have to get very close to the SAM sites all while having to worry about enemy aircraft spotting you while trying to take them out. I can understand why Wild Weasels were such dangerous missions. If a balancing factor is being considered then the F-105 Thunderchief could carry the Shrikes while the F-4E’s have more of a focus on air-to-air duties.

4. Defending team weaponry needs a nerf: As from my understanding, Vietnam never used MiG-21bis and never used the R-13M missile. Their inventory consisted of MiG-21PF and MiG-21MF carrying R-3S and R-3R’s only. I would understand this may be too drastic of a change and could just retrofit the MiG-21bis to only carry 4 missiles of the R-3 category. I think this event should be extended to keep testing the balance for either side and just keep tweaking the defending teams’ weaponry. If the defending team is still too strong then you could swap the MiG-21bis for the MiG-21PFM/MF with R-3S and retrofitted R-3R’s.

5. Helicopters have poor performance on Afghanistan: Because Afghanistan is at a high altitude, the helicopters have a substantially hard time maneuvering between the mountains. Even worse if they have to try to fight off an airplane or evade a missile.

6. SAM sites use SACLOS instead of guiding on radar emission: I think I have encountered moments where the SAM site was locking onto one of my team mates and I wasn’t receiving an RWR warning until my team mate decided to go low and then the SAM site starts locking onto me and guiding it’s missile mid flight. I had barely any time to react to this sudden change and I believe it might be because the SAM sites use SACLOS guidance, but I’m not sure.

These are the main problems I have encountered. The defending team has it pretty easy just because they have one thing to focus on while the attacking team has to worry about many dangers. This isn’t the fault of the players or their skill level. I would understand if there might be skilled players deciding to only play on the defending team for an easy farm, but it really is just the design of the gamemode in its current form.

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290

I have a bit of a crazy idea, what if they had AI F-14 really really far back and they would launch phoenixes at MiG-21

It would fit Vietnam theme since F-14 did see use in Vietnam

291

As much as i like marker-less RB, way better than normal RB…the event is not SEAD.
I mean, thematically is SEAD and understandable if you test the SA-2 for example … but in practice we could test the counterparts like AGM-45 Shrike /AGM-78 StARM and i won’t say AGM-122 Sidearm (too new) , but you could try AGM-67 Focus for the helis -it’s not anti-radar, but A-G and it can work against Shilkas .

But dogfighting with no markers , we need that for modern jets. It’s very good!!! A permanent event mode or something will be good.

In general, we need more events like this. Good or bad implementation it doesn’t matter, you have to try things till you find the formula.

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292

That’s a tough one because they only saw service at the very tail end of the war and the Phoenix missiles are pretty strong in-game. The Phoenix missiles were also meant for bombers and not small fighter aircraft like MiG-21’s. I think a better solution is to just nerf the weaponry of the MiG-21bis or just outright switch the defending teams’ planes to MiG-21PFM with R-3S and R-3R if they are still too strong.

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293

You can snipe the 21s with 7E2s

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294

Mode is hot garbage. Absolutely skewed in Russia’s favor.

Go figure.

295

Except its not for GRB. Its for the new ARB game mode. They literally said it in the post about the event. I doubt we see it in GRB as single one would just hit anywhere between the two airfields.

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No you can’t. Any competent Mig will hug the ground making the Sparrows nothing but dead weight because the 4E radar is dog water and can’t separate targets from ground clutter.

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297

I keep my fingers crossed for this test. Solid PvE can be a saving grace for top tier BS you are serving.

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298

I love it. The simplicity of it, the mig v phantom, the objectives. Keep it in forever like this.

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Actually they had MiG-21MF available with 4x R-3S/R in late phase of war.

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300

I have to say, after playing this event with some buddies, this is EASILY the best thing added to WT in a long time. Something actually new gameplay-wise with potential applications in wider gamemodes in the long run. Everyone I played with was talking about how this was the most fun they’d had playing WT in years.

Now thats not to say this was perfect. There were some clear issues quite frankly.

  1. Spawncamping from the soviet team is incredibly easy to perform and night uncounterable for the americans.
  2. Preset loadouts, while useful for those who dont typically do any form of ground attack or have the vehicles unlocked, also limit player creativity and adaptability to the game-mode.
  3. Some of the SAM sites were effectively out of bounds, which made them very hard to strike, as you’d get spawned flying away from them while you were trying to line up a strike due to hitting the map borders.
  4. The shilkas seemed a little too good. It may have just been bad luck on my part, but anytime you got anywhere within ~2-3km from a Shilka, you’d be killed outright or at the very least crippled to a point where you were borderline combat ineffective. This wouldnt have been a problem if it wasnt for the fact that the shilkas sometimes turn off their radars, making them almost impossible to spot until you’re already being fired at when you’re already dealing with evading superior enemy aircrafts and the S-75, making many deaths to them feel very random and unfair.

I do want to dedicate a little extra on the Shiljas though. I very much like that they felt deadly, dangerous, and they did their jobs well. I dont want them to be nerfed to the levels seen of AI SPAAGs ingame atm, and I actually dont think its necessarily bad they turn off their radars and the likes, as that would be tactics that would be performed irl. The issue imo stems from the faft that they are laser accurate with or without the radar and there is no effective way to mark their approximate position for our team long term, or even to decern their position a bit more accurately as the game drags on. Flying around looking for the next objective and suddenly exploding due to a stream of 23mm shells hitting your pilot square in the jaw despite no RWR warning and with no way to provide long term intel to your team regarding potential threat locations just seems like theres a bit of an RNG death mechanic to the mode.

The above complaint may simply be due to limited experience with the mode though, so I’ll definitly keep playing and hoepfully get a better idea around how I feel regarding the current implementation of the SPAAGs in the SEAD mode. Generally speaking, atm I think I ratger these AI SPAAGs to the ones we have in-game in all other gamemodes, but I think they still need a little more work to get them just right.

They should feel dangerous, not unfair, and atm I’m leaning towards them feeling a bit more like the latter.

I havent yet tried the helicopters, so I dont wanna comment too much on them. What I can say is, I’m interested and optimistic in their inclusion, but atm not sure how they’d be effective in the game mode. The TOWs and Hydra-70’s theyre armed with seem to be subpar for the threats at play, and the games end too quickly for things that move as slowly as they do. We were using them as a glorified TGP at first, using it to easily spot SAM sites, but once we got a better hang of the gamemode, we stopped running them entirely.

Overall very positive, a fantastic step in the right direction despite some teething issues. I look forward to playing this some more, along with me being a bit more (cautiously) optimistic about the future direction of WT!

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301

From what I observed, the Shilkas always turn off their radar until an enemy gets in range if the SAM they are protecting are not destroyed, which AFAIK is a real life tactic and that’s scarily effective in WT. But once you destroy the SAM, their radar will remain on for the rest of the game.

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302

I like this. I think map size needs to be lobby size and BR dependent though. The current game mode map should be smaller. Find myself just flying around looking for an intercept and not doing anything, otherwise it was fun.

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Good to know, I’ll keep an eye out on that to confirm, but I think you might be right 🤔

304

The SA-2 (S-75) is a command guidance missile with an update interval of four seconds (!). Is this reflected in it’s modelling?

305

This event has been a breath of fresh air for Air Combat in War Thunder and I loved (nearly) every minute.

Here is a summary of the things I liked and disliked:

  • Objective based asymmetrical gameplay made the gamemode so much more interesting and opens a great number of possibilities
  • It took a couple hours but teamwork started to appear (unheard of in air RB until then)
  • The S-75 is nicely modelled and put actual threat into climbing whilst also having clear weakness
  • No markers was a great way to employ sneaky tactics and having to utilize sensors to find/hide from opponents

However,

  • The Shilkas are very overtuned, being able to spine pilots at over 4km
  • Mig-21Bis absolutly destroyed the F4s (even worse when they are fully loaded) and helis without flares
  • Spawn camping was out of control on both sides and there wasn’t much to be done against it
  • Since the S-75 SAM sites arn’t very smart and can only shoot one target at a time, it was hard to take advantage of them being on your team to gain the altitude advantage since an F-4 at medium to high altitude would always slip through anyways

I’m looking forward to seeing what this gamemode brings for the future of Air battles in War Thunder and how it will bring new mechanics, tactics, and ways to work as a team.

Bugs encountered:

  • Mission doesn’t end when all attackers are dead (fixed)
  • Some SAM sites spawn outside border limits (may be intended)
  • Some SAM site radars cannot be destroyed and are just “blacked out” when receiving damage making it impossible to win as attackers
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306

I hope they extend the event. I’m having fun and I actually prefer it over normal air RB thanks to no markers and having respawns. It’s not the best balanced event but it’s a solid foundation.

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307

I don’t think it’s all great honestly. Its very lopsided against the US with equal number of Mig-21s AND SAM sites to deal with. And no AGMs or ARMs is just disappointing. If it was a test bed more than that, like say an AI RIO or Joker, cool. But it seems rather niche to keep as a separate mode rather than something to change normal Air RB to include. Bigger maps with both sides have air defenses as additional targets besides just outposts, bunkers, and emplacements.

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308

My first and only go at it so far ended up wit me getting killed twice and neither was to players, in fact both times it was to the ZSU’s (they need to have their accuracy nerfed)